


Moving On

by futsukushii



Category: Yu-Gi-Oh!
Genre: Gen, ygo sesa 2014
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-03
Updated: 2015-01-03
Packaged: 2018-03-05 02:30:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,247
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3102149
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/futsukushii/pseuds/futsukushii
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Ishtar family post-Alcatraz. Ishizu realizes soon after Malik's evil side is defeated that he was only one of many problems their family has.<br/>Written (late) for the Yugioh Secret Santa 2014 on Tumblr.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Moving On

**Author's Note:**

> My prompt from tumblr user thetrainticket was "I'm mostly in the DM fandom, anything Ishtar-family related is fine by me! Otherwise my otp is Jointshipping :'D"  
> I use the spelling "Malik" for the regular character, and "Malik's evil half" is Yami Malik.

Some things are fixed, but most things are not.

Ishizu thinks she always knew, in the back of her mind, that all their family’s problems wouldn’t go away with just the defeat of Malik’s evil half, but she put off thinking about it until the immediate problems were fixed. Save Malik; that was her first and most important goal. If she could only save Malik, she had a vague thought that everything else would follow.

Everything else did follow, but it would take a lot more work and time than she had thought it would.

* * *

There was a peace between the three of them- Ishizu, Malik, and Rishid- after they left Yugi on the Domino pier to go home. Unfortunately, that was an illusion that quickly shattered.

“Where are we going?” Malik asks Ishizu. Rishid is a silent presence hovering slightly behind and to the side of Malik.

“Home,” she says simply. It was not, actually, as simple as it should have been.

“And where is that?” Malik asks.

“…Ah.”

There are still problems. This is the first time she begins to think of them in earnest.

She had forgotten since they got the Battle City, but she doesn’t know where Malik and Rishid have been living these last few years while Malik lead the Rare Hunters.

“I have an apartment in Cairo…” she trails off into awkward silence. She doesn’t mention that the apartment has two bedrooms and that the second bedroom has two beds.

Malik is silent. Ishizu wonders if he’s going to tell her that he and Rishid have an apartment somewhere.

“Let’s go there,” Malik says eventually.

Ishizu thinks maybe the details of those few years are something she should move on from. Instead, she makes a mental note to interrogate Rishid about them later.

* * *

Malik and Rishid don’t comment on the extra room or the two beds. Ishizu finds herself fighting to remember if the three of them have spoken more than five words to each other since getting last-minute tickets to Cairo at the Domino airport.

To say their family is bad at communication is a huge understatement. She puts this down in her growing mental list as something to work on and feels a bit of relief. They have something to work on now. She can begin to fix the mess that is their family.

She can’t see the future anymore, but she goes to bed feeling more optimistic than she ever did when she had the Tauk.

* * *

The optimism doesn’t last.

She’s never been one to brood in the dark on things she can’t change until tomorrow, but there’s a first time for everything. She gets up after two hours of tossing and turning awake in bed with her thoughts whirling to make a cup of tea. As the electric kettle heats up, she finds paper and a pencil and begins writing out her mental list of things to do in hopes that it will calm her mind.

The only thing left for them is to guide the Pharaoh from the Cairo airport to his tomb. They’re almost completely severed from destiny and 3000 year old family obligations. Their life is their own to make a new start with.

She feels an almost overwhelming necessity to get it right. She’s also unsure what getting it right would entail.

The more she thinks, the more questions she has. Does Malik need to go to school? Does he _want_ to go to school? What about Rishid, who’s far too old for regular school? Will Rishid need to get a job or would she be able to support the three of them with just hers?

The kettle starts to boil and she pours the water into the tea pot, pouring a cup of tea after a minute of steeping. She cradles her hands around the cup and tries to take comfort from the hot mug. She stops when it starts to hurt her hands and instead takes her mug, her list, and her pen over to the computer on the desk in the corner and powers it on. She waits as it boots up and logs in, opening up her Internet browser and staring at the Google search field, unsure what exactly to look up first.

“What are you doing up, sister?” Malik says from behind her.

She spins around on the office chair to look at him. He looks tired and has bags beneath his eyes, though she’s not sure she looks any better.

She’s about to turn the question back on him before she stops herself. If she can’t sleep, small wonder Malik can’t either. “I’m… thinking. About what to do next,” she says instead.

He moves slightly towards the couch and then stops. The silence grows longer and more awkward as they face each other mutely. She thinks this might be the time to try working on communication like she has written down second in her list.

“Would you like some tea?” she asks. He smiles slightly.

“Yes, please.”

She gets up to get him a cup and pour him some tea. He follows her into the kitchen. When Malik has his tea in hand they both move back to the living room. Malik sits on the couch and she hesitates before grabbing her own mug and her list and sitting on the couch.

“So… what’s next, then?” Malik asks finally.

“I’m not sure,” she admits. “Have you… thought about school?”

Malik pauses in drinking his tea. “Um… no.”

She wants to ask him if he wants to go to school, but she also doesn’t want to pressure him. “Have you thought about anything else?”

“Well…”

She waits and tries to appear interested, but patient and not overbearing. She’s not sure if she succeeds.

“I was thinking about how to shut down the Rare Hunters.”

Ishizu’s not in the habit of swearing, but this might be the time to pick it up. Instead, she makes what she hopes is a noncommittal noise.

“I think that because I’m gone, it will fall apart… there was no one that could have taken my place. And the counterfeiting equipment must be gone by now…”

“The counterfeiting equipment?” she asks.

“We… didn’t just counterfeit cards. We also counterfeited money. It drew less attention than… when I robbed banks with the Rod.”

“Oh,” she says. She had known the extent of the crimes the Rare Hunters had carried out already, but this is the first time that she’s really associated them with Malik and thought about them all being his ideas. Her sixteen year old brother is a criminal. He’s stepping down from leading an international crime ring. This was… quite a bit more than just collecting rare trading cards.

“If you need... help with that… you know that I’m here for you, right, Malik?” she says. She’s offering, even though they both know she doesn’t know the slightest thing about international crime rings or shutting them down. But this is about more than that.

“Thanks, Ishizu,” Malik says, and yawns. He finishes his tea in one large gulp. “I’m going to go back to bed. Night.”

“Goodnight.” She watches him go and then moves back to the computer and starts typing “cairo schools” into the search bar.

It’s not a perfect start, and she doesn’t think any of them are going to be able to sleep easily for a long time. But it’s a start, and she thinks that’s good enough for now.

**Author's Note:**

> This is absolutely not edited but it's also the first time I've written fanfic since I quit FFnet in 2012 so I'm just proud I wrote something at all.


End file.
